The Future of NFL Player Evaluation

As I was preparing to write about NFL Draft prospects I consulted various data.

First, I consulted myself, which is not a euphemism for anything, I assure you, but it does sound funny. Those of you who are regular readers know that I’m an only child, and thus I talk to myself constantly, audibly or otherwise. By consulting with myself I meant did I actually see the guy play? As an example, I saw several LSU games this year, hence my mandraft crush on Chad Jones. I also saw Oklahoma State play several times this year, which explains my Perrish Cox obsession. I saw a great deal of Notre Dame, which is why I believe Golden Tate will be a star and why Carolina got incredibly lucky to land Jimmy Clausen.

Second, I consulted the reports and dispatches of draft experts not named Todd McShay (just kidding, Todd, kind of…). I read things from guys at NFL.com, ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, National Football Post, and the like.

Third, I watched a ton of NFL Combine coverage just to see what these guys actually look like. One drill in particular stood out to me and must have made quite an impression on everyone else was the “kick out” drill that the offensive linemen go through. This is a drill where an offensive lineman sets up in a pass-protection stance while the other guy in the drill stands a few feet away and simulates rushing the QB. I was mesmerized watching these guys go through this drill if only because there was such a disparity between the prospects. Now the drill itself is inherently unfair because it’s really an offensive tackle drill and interior linemen had to go through it. After watching several guys look like their hands were tied together and attached to a car driving down the street going 10 miles-per-hour (picture them being able to keep up for awhile, but soon they’d start leaning, and ultimately fall flat on their face trying to keep up) trying to keep up with the “edge rusher” barreling down on them, I saw Trent Williams. I marveled at how quick he was and how well he got out of his stance to cut off the rusher. Several of the guys couldn’t even catch up with the rusher to even touch them, much less get in front, but Williams was different. Anyway, that performance (and the rest of his combine exposition) catapulted him in front of Seattle’s Own Russell Okung (thank you, NFL Combine!). A ton of other drills were really fun to watch too, such as the change of direction drills that the DBs went through, interesting stuff. Perhaps I’ll attend next year in person…

Fourth, I poured over the results from the NFL Combine and NFL Pro Days. While these numbers are not solely predictors of NFL success, they are the only true objective measures that football has. It’s very different from baseball where there are so many stats that are actually useful given the fixed (one guy pitches to another guy who is batting), individual (one-on-one) nature of the game. The numbers are useful, but only as part of the overall analysis.

That’s basically it. However, given the desire to quantify everything (as evidenced by the popularity of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (www.sloansportsconference.com), there must be a better way to truly measure, objectively and through drills and testing, an NFL prospect.

I believe that I’ve come up with it.

Ladies (are there any who read this?) and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the next wave of sports analytics…

Video Games.

Hear me out.

If you’ve ever played video games, specifically football games, you know that the technology has come a long, long, long way. I used to play Intellivision Football with a controller that was shaped like a TV remote control (complete with numbers) and a ridiculous circular disc that you controlled with your thumb. Also, each game had its own plastic sheet that slid into the controller that had graphics that corresponded to each number. Check it out:

Wow. We had terrible technology in the 80s (although I played the hell out of Burgertime).

Anyway, I feel robbed. I also feel 100 years old after watching that. Intellevision’s technology was so advanced that the football game did not have a one-player option; it was either two-players or nothing. Again, since I was an only child, I would simultaneously play offense and defense. I thought that it was pathetic at the time, and now, seeing it written down I can confirm that it was indeed pathetic. How I ever got any girls and how my parents never found me dangling from my ceiling like John Locke is a mystery because I did not have any ennui deficiencies…

Now look at what we have today:

I chose this specific video clip because it highlights the most interesting part of these games: motion capture. Before we get into it are those guys running around the best athletes EA Sports could find? Any shortcomings that the game has must be directly attributed to those goofy guys running around awkwardly. Step it up, EA Sports, you’re better than that. I know that they have pro guys come in and do stuff, but they aren’t in this clip.

Kidding aside, imagine if every football game, NFL and college, was fully equipped with motion-capture technology. First, it would make the video games that much better (and they are already very good). Second, that data would be incredibly useful to NFL teams as they attempt to project which of those college players would make good pros. They would be able to simulate what a player can do based on what he’s already done on the field and they could see it visually on the screen. Every move that the guy does on the field would be recorded. How fast they got from point A to point B would be catalogued. Think about how that would enhance player evaluation at any level. If you wanted to see just how fast Brandon Graham could get to Joe Flacco all you would have to do is queue up his profile and drop him into a game simulation against the Ravens. Would it be perfect? No, of course not, but it would be as close to the real thing as it could possibly get. Teams would be able to time how fast a DB gets out of his backpedal and into a full sprint to track a WR and actually see it simulated.

On a more granular level, teams could evaluate just how quickly a linebacker gets off of the snap of the ball when rushing the QB or how quickly he drops back into coverage and compare those times and simulations to scores of other prospects. It would be revolutionary, or at the very least evolutionary.

There are a few slight technical issues currently. Not the least of which is the fact that these guys on the motion capture video above are outfitted in black tights with light bulbs attached all over their bodies and if they wore that during a game they’d explode on impact. Oh and they are running around on a grid made specifically for this. My answer to that? Technology will advance and they’ll find a way to make it happen.

I mean, we’re not playing video games with a TV remote any longer, are we?